CONNECT (NVC Canoe Journey)
If you’ve been craving deeper connection - to yourself, to others, and to something bigger?
This journey is for you.
To get a sense of it, checkout this video captured on our 2023 journey:
CONNECT is our pinnacle journey
- a deep dive into the art of living, relating, and communicating from the heart.
Rediscover yourself, nature & your sense of community
Over nine days on the Nymboida and Clarence Rivers, you’ll paddle through pristine gorges, navigate whitewater, and live simply in community - carrying everything you need to survive, thrive, and connect.
Trip Details
Each day we blend Nonviolent Communication (NVC) practices with the natural flow of the river, exploring what it means to listen deeply and express honestly. You’ll be guided by Kate Raffin, an experienced NVC facilitator and creative mediator whose work inspires courage, clarity, and real change. Supported by the JOIN team of qualified whitewater instructors, you’ll learn not only how to paddle through rapids, but how to navigate the internal currents of emotion, need, and connection.
This is not your average adventure retreat. It’s a living laboratory for compassion - where courage and communication meet creativity and play. You’ll practice speaking and listening from the heart, find strength in community, and witness how the river mirrors your inner world.
Days are filled with paddling, learning, and laughter. Nights bring the warmth of campfire conversations, starlit skies, and the kind of connection that only grows when we drop the masks and meet each other as we truly are.
After the river journey, you’ll receive three integration sessions and a buddy practice to help bring your learning home - bridging the wilderness and your everyday life with ongoing support.
What a day looks like
Being in canoes creates a platform for a much more intimate understanding of self and the water. It is not like the gun-ho, guided experience of a rafting adventure. Instead boats are paddled in pairs, facilitating an opportunity for participants to develop trust, communication and understanding with their canoeing partners, as well as experiencing first hand the outcome of their paddling decisions.
The Nymboida & Clarence Rivers have a safe drop-pool style, so capsizes and mistakes are harmless fun, and there is ample room to collect our wits and process our experiences in the calm pools below.
The retreat will be facilitated by Kate Raffin & the JOIN Team .
Prior experience
The prerequisite for this retreat
Arriving with some understanding of NVC helps people to benefit from each moment of the retreat (not just the sessions). Kate will offer us all an experiential style of integrated practices that support learning NVC in ways that are lively, relevant, engaging and deeply enriching.
To qualify, come join one of Kate Raffin's upcoming intro courses:
Kate is also running an online ONGO group this year.
NVC trainers Bridget O'Donnell from Restore Connect and Alistair Mckinnon from Conscious Directions both also offer training and have joined us on our previous Compassionate Canoe Journeys, so they will have extra insights to offer you directly related to their experience.
For a list of other trainings, go to www.nvcaustralia.com
Alternatively Mukti runs a great Connection essentials online course, a good option for if you are trying to squeeze in some experience before January!
Nonviolent Communication (NVC), was founded by Marshall Rosenberg in the 1960s. It is grounded in consciousness, language, communication skills, and uses of power that enable us to remain connected to everyone’s humanity, even under trying conditions. Nonviolent Communication contains nothing new: all that has been integrated into NVC has been known for centuries. The intent is to remind us about what we already know – about how we humans are meant to relate to one another – and to assist us in living in a way that concretely manifests this knowledge.
Do I need to be super fit?
To get the most out of the adventure, it's great if you have a reasonable level of aerobic fitness and upper body/core strength (able to sit and paddle for 3-6hrs) as well as a willingness/preparedness that you may fall out of your canoe and float down a rapid or two. It's helpful if you are able to walk on uneven, slippery surfaces at times, sometimes dragging or floating a canoe with other team members if a portage (walking around a rapid) is required. In saying this, we are able to modify and support additional needs, so contact us if you have any questions on adaptation.
A great attitude and open-mind will set you up for success